RUSH: Hey, did you notice who just ended their press conference right before this program started? Barack Hussein O! He got out of there with about 30 seconds to spare. And somebody really got under Obama’s skin at his press conference today by asking him how he feels to be responsible for the rise of Donald Trump, and he said, “Well, that’s kind of a novel idea, blaming me for Trump’s rise.” And Jorge Ramos took it to Hillary Clinton last night in the Democrat debate.

I’m gonna spend some time on the Democrats today. They had their debate last night. They are the ultimate opponent here, and I might even go further and say they’re the ultimate enemy. As you know, I believe — and I’m sure many of you will agree — as we have documented time and time again, the Democrat Party is the greatest threat to this country and our attempt to maintain our founding principles and ideals. The Democrat Party consists of a much greater threat than anybody on the Republican side in their presidential campaign.

And during primary season, we always tend to ignore the Democrats somewhat, including the candidates. The candidates running for the Republican nomination, by definition, have to focus on the immediate opponents, all of whom happen to be Republican. And the Democrats largely do the same thing, although I think the Democrats do a better job of coming together and realizing who their ultimate enemy is. And, in their debates and TV appearances, they never not mention the Republicans.

It’s been a while since a serious criticism of substance against the Democrats has been mounted, other than a perfect if you think reference to the necessity to defeat Hillary or “I can beat Hillary and you can’t,” but the details of what’s happening in this Democrat primary are largely going on behind the scene and unnoticed. The Drive-Bys aren’t spending a whole lot of time reporting on it; they focus on the horse race. But let me give you an example of what I’m talking about. Oh. And I am gonna do one thing on the Republican side before we dig deep into this Democrat debate last night.

And don’t worry. It’s not gonna be anywhere like the whole show on this, folks, but I was thinking that… I’ve gotta tell you, it hit me last night. I watched a lot of these town halls on Fox, and that was work, sitting through three, 3-1/2 hours of this stuff. It was Rubio and then Cruz and then Trump — or I may have them out of order. And in the periods of time between these town halls, okay, I know what they’re gonna say. I know this. I would check my iPad Pro to find out what else is happening out there, and I came across a story on the Hulk Hogan/Gawker trial, and it is just sheer, utter depravity.

It was depressing, utter depravity to read what is happening in that trial. I don’t even want to get into detail with you about what it’s about. I mean, I may at some point in the program later today, but I’m just… I was engulfed. And everywhere else I would go, whatever news story that was not about the primaries and the campaigns, just utter depravity and debauchery. And it just reminded me of the cultural rot that has been overtaking our society. And for some reason last night it just hit me.

And I sat there and I actually experienced feelings of depression going through and reading this stuff and realizing that all these complaints that we’re hearing about what’s happening in the Republican debate, they are nothing compared to some of the stuff that’s happening day in and day out on American television. And you can trace it back, if you want. You can say, “Where did this all start?” For example, Politico today. Politico actually did just a straight, cut-and-dried story on a point that I made yesterday.

In fact, I’m encountering… I don’t know what this means, but I’m encountering a lot more fair coverage of me in the Drive-By Media and various publications, websites, or networks. And I don’t want to mention them because I don’t want to tick off the news gods. You know, when you’re playing golf and you’re playing well, you never admit it ’cause that angers the golf gods and they come back and they get you, and you lose your swing for a week or two or you play horribly. So you never… So I don’t want to to jinx this, but it’s incredible.

And The Politico has a story about a point that I made yesterday, all these people worried Trump’s not being presidential and the campaign as such and the debates not representing the better parts of us, the sacred trust that is the presidential campaign being blown to smithereens as everybody goes to the gutter. And I made a point: When was the last president that treated all this with the greatest of respect and the utmost reverence? And it was George W. Bush. And what did it get him? My point is: What did it get him?

I’m not saying he shouldn’t have done it. My point is there wasn’t any credit extended to Bush for treating the office with respect. And nobody in our lifetimes, other than Ronaldus Magnus, has treated the office with more respect than Bush and his dad, to the point that Bush would not even respond to any criticism because that was “politics” and he was not going to let politics enter the Oval Office. He would do politics when he was campaigning, but he would not do “politics” when he was president.

We’re sitting out here frustrated as hell.

He’s betting beat up, we’re getting beat up, the country’s getting beat up by the Democrats, and he doesn’t respond to it because he didn’t want to “sully the office.” He told me that I can’t say how many times. What did it get him? Look at what it really did. If you want to see the forerunner of what’s happening now, I don’t have to go far back. I don’t have to go further back than Bill Clinton, for crying out loud. You want to talk about sullying the office? You want to talk about breaking the sacred trust of reverence for the Oval Office and the presidency?

For crying out loud, Bill Clinton going in there after a jog all sweaty in gym shorts and a T-shirt and putting his arm around whatever intern he can find? And everything else we know that went on? And it didn’t hurt him. It didn’t… These, to me, are examples of the slow devolving of our culture, and it’s a serious thing, as far as I’m concerned. And we don’t speak of it a lot lately. We have, over the course of recent years, of course. But things happening in the course of the campaign are taking precedence.

Now, there is some discussion of it with the way the Republican primary campaign, the debates and primary are happening. But they’re nothing compared to some of the other rot that’s out there. It’s a question of chicken and egg. You know, which begot which?